Christmas away from home help!

shellz
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 12:04:09 +0000

Two of our family’s favorite Christmases were a-typical, without all of our traditional “stuff”. The first was spent in a rental apartment while waiting for our new home to be completed. We were supposed to be in by Late Oct, so we sent ALL of our Christmas stuff to storage. My kids were 10, 8, and 3 so I was worried they would be disappointed. We made homemade ornaments (we still use the rather garish toilet paper tube/coloring page star tree topper, complete with glitter (aka craft herpes!!)…much to DD’s chagrin. Her brothers LOVE it to this day). We bought a tiny tree, taught ourselves to make homemade tamales, and all in all had a very memorable holiday. The second a-typical was spent in a condo in a ski resort. My warm weather kids wanted a real, white Christmas. As they were still young, we had to transport all the presents, which we put in the roof cargo carrier. When we arrived in the midst of a snow storm, we found that our car wouldn’t fit in the underground parking garage. What fun trying to distract the kids from the packages that spilled out when the carrier popped open upon removal. The stop at a local discounter provided us with the most pitiful little prelit tree (really more of a Festivus pole, for you Seinfeld fans!) and we strung popcorn and cranberries and colored macaroni for decorations. It snowed on Christmas morning…priceless. My kids are now 23, 21, and 16, and still talk about these two Christmases, and how it wasn’t about the “stuff”.